


Playing with Matches

by simplecoffee



Category: Collateral (2004)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Career Ending Injuries, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:21:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27167833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/simplecoffee/pseuds/simplecoffee
Summary: Death isn't good at keeping promises, either.
Relationships: Daniel Baker/Vincent (Collateral)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 6
Collections: Trick or Treat Exchange 2020





	Playing with Matches

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ThisPolarNoise](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThisPolarNoise/gifts).



Daniel breaks a promise; he doesn't leave. He doesn't leave LA, and he doesn't leave the club. He's put all his savings into it for almost a decade, put his soul into the music for longer. He's half packed a bag that night before he stops for a drink, realizes in the faint light flickering up from the street that he doesn't want to run, not now when he's stared death in the face and lived.

He expects death to return. Death isn't good at keeping promises, either. He stays away from the club for the ten days it takes to stop looking over his shoulder, for the Reyes-Torrena trial to wrap up safely without him. The staff is never any the wiser to why; only his cat knows. 

He doesn't give evidence. Not much about the trial gets to the papers, but the man goes to prison anyway, so they must have had enough information to convict. It's a few weeks before the fear truly fades, when no one comes looking, from Felix or otherwise; when the trial fades from the news. 

Daniel falls out of practice looking over his shoulder. He never does with the music. He scans the audience every night, before his set and after, spotting the occasional jazz aficionado, the occasional first date. 

It's a month or two before the shock. 

It takes a glance or several before it sinks in. He looks - not different, but different enough. Thinner, no longer in a grey suit, just a grey long-sleeved t-shirt and trousers. Daniel doesn't play his best that night, more in sync with his own heartbeat than with the drummers, expecting the man to pick a moment and strike, to point him out to someone or get close enough to shoot. Instead, when the set is over and the patrons start to drift away, he watches him reach to the floor, grab a dark, polished cane, and leave.

He keeps coming back. Once or twice a week he sits in a corner in the shadows, nearly silent, for the duration of Daniel's set. He never causes trouble, never seems to notice that Daniel sees him; never seems to move much once he's seated, always toward the left wall, always wearing grey. He always leaves before closing time, but sometimes lingers after Daniel's last set of the night, breathing carefully with his eyes closed, the waitresses' _hey baby_ s and _sure honey_ s clearly sailing a little bit over his head.

There's no body count. Daniel lets him stay. He thinks one or two of the waitresses, some of the band, catch him staring at his bent grey head from time to time, or his hands wrapped round his glass on the table, wrapped round the head of his cane as he slips away. There's a fascination to him, as there is to near misses, to promises unkept. There's a fascination to the dark stubble at his jaw, the strange set of his shoulders, so much less easy now than on the night he spared his life.

There's a fascination to playing with matches. Daniel's not a man to play anything safe. If he had been, he'd never have stayed. Even if subtlety were his strong suit, he thinks it'd be wearing thin by now.

Stacy points him out one night, after the set, as the band cools down. None of them seem surprised; he suspects they put her up to it. _Your gentleman caller, Daniel, baby,_ she says. _You ever notice him? Some nights he can't keep his eyes off of you. Maybe you should go and say something._

Daniel's not a man to play anything safe, and it's been a while since a jazz aficionado asked him over to their table to talk.

The man's head snaps up when he sits in the chair across from him. He's almost snarling for a split second, almost panicked before he recognizes him and the look in his eyes fades to dull surprise and something like defiance, his hand falling the couple of inches back to lying flat on the table between them.

"Where's your friend?" Daniel says.

"He's not my friend." His voice is low, weighed down, like it hasn't seen much use of late. The smile he offers up for a moment or two is polite but barely there, and when he drops it, Daniel thinks it's because he had to. "How are you, Daniel?" 

"I'm the coolest cat in town." His eyes are fixed on Daniel's lips as he speaks, intent, like he's reading something there. "As you can see, I just couldn't leave. You here for some music?"

"More than you know."

"So Miles Davis trivia knowledge is still insurance? Who'da thought."

"I'm not here to kill you, Daniel," he says. "You play like a dream. I'm here for that."

Daniel leans into his space, quiet. "Don't fuck around."

"No fuckin' around."

He holds his gaze now, steady, but with an effort. Daniel has the feeling that unlike the first time they met, he could take this man in a fight. Pin him down by the shoulders, by the wrists.

"Wanna hear me play some more? Come take a ride with me."

-

He takes him up on it. Doesn't cause trouble. He keeps his hands where Daniel can see them, all the way back to his apartment door - one on the head of the cane, one on his thigh or by his side. He's small when they walk together, the top of his head hovering by Daniel's chin.

"Weapons on the table," Daniel tells him while unlocking the door, the man standing beside him, close enough to touch.

"How do you know I have any?"

"I could strip you down."

He smirks, a little. "Aren't you going to do that anyway?"

"Not unless you tell me your name first."

For the first time, he looks uncertain. Folds his arms for a moment, though the cane makes it awkward.

"It's Vincent," he finally says, and Daniel opens the door and lets him in. 

He does put his weapons on the table. One revolver, right hand. One switchblade, left. Both hands stay carefully visible when he follows Daniel to the couch; no sudden movements, nothing suspicious, like he wants him to remember he's not a threat. He still could be; Daniel's weighed it, decided he could take it. Disarmed, he'll take it. There's one condition left.

"If you hurt the cat, Vincent," he says calmly as he unpacks his trumpet, "I will kill you with my bare hands."

"I'm not here to hurt anyone." Jazz Cat is sniffing around his shoes, and he's looking at her with some confusion. There's no malice. He'll give him the benefit of the doubt. He's made the consequences of harm to her clear, after all.

"Just for the music, huh?"

"That and whatever else you want."

Daniel takes him at his word, and plays. Vincent practically falls backward when pushed and listens with his eyes closed, his head resting on the couch cushions, gently turned all the way over to the left side. He's still awake when Daniel's finished improvising for the night, blinks his eyes open when he packs the trumpet away. Like on the ride home, he doesn't talk.

"Thanks," he says finally, awkwardly. "Like I said. You play like a dream."

"That cane's too tall for you," Daniel says.

"Oh, fuck off."

"You'll ruin your shoulder. Your wrist. Which leg is it?" 

"Fuck off," Vincent says again, with even less heat to it than before. " - Christ, don't start, lay off and help me up."

"No one seems to be helping you with shit," Daniel says, but he lays off and grabs him by the arm, easing him upright on the couch, and then when he's certain he's steady, upright to standing. He forgot to pick up the cane or hand it to him before taking his weight, but Vincent uses him for support instead, reaching up and pulling him down and kissing him fiercely, hands at the back of his neck, until Daniel half supports, half guides him to the bedroom.

-

"The cane's for balance," he finally says, in the faint light flickering up from the street, lying on his left side, his back to Daniel, staring fixedly at the wall. "I got shot a couple times. Messed up a bunch of inner ear shit on the left - can't hear much on that side, can't do much without getting dizzy some days. Strangely, the gut wound was easier to heal from."

Daniel's noticed the gut wound, noticed the surgery it took to fix it. "That's some scar."

"Sure is."

For a while, like on the ride home, they don't talk. Daniel finally pulls up the blanket from the foot of the bed and covers him with it, thinks about showing him his own scars from Vietnam, thinks about how death isn't good at keeping promises. Thinks about how maybe they can both keep theirs for a while.

He says, quietly, "You want something to wear for the night?"

Vincent blinks at the wall, folds his arms under the blanket, awkward. "Yeah."


End file.
